{"id":178,"date":"2008-08-20T03:59:32","date_gmt":"2008-08-20T03:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2008\/08\/20\/on_ize\/"},"modified":"2008-08-20T03:59:32","modified_gmt":"2008-08-20T03:59:32","slug":"on_ize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2008\/08\/20\/on_ize\/","title":{"rendered":"On ‘-ize’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cath is frustrated<\/a> with variant spellings. This, actually, is something I come across a lot in Australia, where they seem to want to follow the Francophone world (beats me why).<\/p>\n

\nLet me explain.<\/p>\n

\nIn English (‘English’. Not ‘British’ English or ‘International’ English: English<\/em>) if you form a verb by adding a suffix to a noun, you use -ize<\/em><\/a>. Many people get this wrong, and add -ise<\/em>. I have a theory why this state of affairs persists.<\/p>\n

\nOnce upon a time the -ize<\/em> was standard. Then, when personal computing started taking off, certain software developers thought it would be a good idea to include spell checkers with word-processing software. Most of these people were in the US, and one of them realized that across the Atlantic we quaintly used -yse<\/em> at the end of certain verbs, whereas he (unlikely to be a ‘she’) was used to -yze<\/em>. So, this got lumped in with the ‘u’ deficit and the f\/ph switch as a simple variation in English spellings1<\/a><\/sup>. So far so good. However, he made the mistake of assuming that all verbs in English outside of the US ended -se<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\nNote the mistake. It is quite subtle.<\/p>\n

\nSo a generation of Microsoft Word users outside of the US<\/em> grew up believing that there was such a thing as ‘British’ English, and that verbs end with -ise<\/em>, and not the correct -ize<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\nAustralia, with its devil-spawn Macquarie Dictionary, perpetuated this error, following the French:<\/p>\n

\nThis practice prob. began first in French; in mod.F. the suffix has become -iser<\/em>, alike in words from Greek, as baptiser<\/em>, \u00e9vang\u00e9liser<\/em>, organiser, and those formed after them from L., as civiliser, cicatriser, humaniser<\/em>. Hence, some have used the spelling -ise<\/em> in Eng., as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise<\/em> in words formed in French or Eng. from L. elements, retaining -ize<\/em> for those of Gr. composition. (\u2014ize<\/em><\/a>)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nBut all this nonsense about Greek and Latin words is irrelevant. As the One True Dictionary says, <\/p>\n

\n(T)he suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Gr. (_-izein_), L. -izre<\/em>; and, as the pronunciation is also with z<\/em>, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic<\/em>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nScandalized? You bloody well should be.<\/p>\n


\nfn1. The Americans are absolutely correct with their spelling of ‘aluminum’. However, ‘aluminium’ is prettier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cath is frustrated with variant spellings. This, actually, is something I come across a lot in Australia, where they seem to want to follow the Francophone world (beats me why). Let me explain. In English (‘English’. Not ‘British’ English or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}